Activist Protest Kraft's Genetically Engineered Foods

By Rochelle Kass

The Journal News (New York)

February 07, 2002)

TARRYTOWN — Ten people gathered with placards outside the Kraft Technical Center in Tarrytown yesterday and called on Kraft Foods Inc. to stop using genetically engineered foods.

Kraft was targeted because it is the largest producer of food in the United States and does not label its products as genetically engineered. By law Kraft does not have to. But the revelation in September 2000 that Kraft's Taco Bell taco shells had been contaminated by StarLink, a genetically engineered corn not meant for human consumption, raised public awareness of possible health risks related to foods with genetically altered ingredients — and forced a recall.

"It is time for Kraft to finally make public health a priority," said Theresa Cassiack, a project coordinator for the New York Public Interest Research Group at SUNY-Purchase, one of the key organizers of the event.

"Kraft is aware of the potential health and environmental risks of genetically engineered foods, yet they have chosen profits over precautions," Cassiack said. "Kraft is conducting a giant food experiment and American families are the guinea pigs."

Based on numbers, the impact of such a small group may seem negligible. But similar gatherings took place at 170 locations in North America and Australia, according to NYPIRG.

The campaign, spearheaded by NYPIRG and the Genetically Engineered Food Alert coalition, comes as public interest in organic products is increasing.

Retail sales of organic food and beverages in the United States jumped from $1 billion in 1990 to about $9.35 billion in 2001, roughly 24 percent growth on an annual basis, according to the Organic Trade Association.

Other food manufacturers, including The Hain Celestial Group, General Mills Inc. and Kellog Co., have already set up organic food divisions.

Genetic engineering of foods, a process by which genes from an unrelated species are introduced into a food, is only about five years old. Though the federal government has declared the process safe — it is regulated by the United States Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture — it has caused concern and controversy in scientific circles.

"When you put a foreign gene into an existing organism, it's not like you're just dumping one extra protein into the organism," said Stuart Newman, Ph.D., a professor of cell biology and anatomy at New York Medical College in Valhalla and a founding member of the Council for Responsible Genetics in Cambridge, Mass. "You're creating changes in that organism so that the things that it makes on its own may be present in different ratios and proportions."

Newman, who attended the event, said past experiments have clearly raised the question of risk. These include laboratory rats in Scotland that developed sores and lesions in their intestines after eating potatoes that had been grown with an insecticide gene, and people with allergies to Brazil nuts having a reaction after eating soybeans engineered with a gene from the nuts.

"It's things like that that raise questions," Newman said. "It doesn't mean that genetically engineered foods are unsafe. It does mean that the public has the right to know and that the companies shouldn't be putting it in without labeling that it's there."

Newman rejected a suggestion by proponents of genetically engineered foods that the process is done in the name of improved health.

"Right now all genetic engineering is for business and profitability purposes, not for health purposes," he said.

Kraft officials could not be reached for comment, but the issue is not new to the company — even beyond StarLink.

Shareholders of Kraft's parent, Philip Morris Co., have asked for a vote on phasing out genetically engineered foods in recent proxies. The board recommended against the proposal last year, stating, "Kraft's highest priority is the safety of its food products," and citing that the FDA, the EPA and the America Medical Association have all approved its use.

Additionally, Kraft said that after the StarLink recall it recommended that government agencies should approve bioengineered crops "only if they are approved for consumption by humans as well as animals. The food and agriculture industry as well as biotechnology companies have widely accepted this recommendation, and we believe that it will be followed."

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